


Victims of Circumstance - 12/20 – Making Calls

by motsureru



Series: Victims of Circumstance [12]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-08
Updated: 2008-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:10:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motsureru/pseuds/motsureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2. This is a <b><span>sequel</span> </b>to <i>Any Other Night</i>, which is a <b><span>sequel</span></b> to <i>Broken Glass.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Victims of Circumstance - 12/20 – Making Calls

**Author's Note:**

> An enormous amount of thanks to [](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/profile)[**etoile_dunord**](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/), who edits my commas and makes me happy doing it. <3 And an ENORMOUS thanks to [](http://hugh.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hugh.livejournal.com/)**hugh** , who slaved away at these pictures for me. <33 

**Teaser _:_** _The words seemed strangely tender to Sylar, and he didn’t know how to respond to them. There were meanings layered upon meanings there, but first and foremost Sylar felt the ones that struck him deepest; a trust that he never honestly thought would exist between them._  


   
  
  


.12Making Calls

 

The phone call came at three in the morning, and Mohinder had only gotten into bed two hours before. He’d spent the entire day at the lab, alone, for Sebastian’s absence, and though he’d meant to come home by at least eight o’clock for dinner, he’d pushed himself terribly all afternoon, fallen asleep, and caught the last bus home.

Sylar had already gone to bed when he returned, and to keep from waking him Mohinder simply pulled off his socks and shoes and crawled atop the covers, falling fast asleep. Matters were still not resolved between them, and even though Sylar had left out a plate of food covered in plastic wrap, Mohinder had the feeling a meal (and missing it) would do little to help mitigate their unspoken words.

The painfully loud ringing of Mohinder’s cell phone in his pocket woke the exhausted man almost immediately, and he fumbled as quickly as he could to draw the item out, opening it and pressing it to his ear.

“ _Yes?_ ” he whispered gruffly, rolling onto his right side to try to shield Sylar’s sleeping form from his voice. Bennet was on the other end, speaking rapidly about the virus and a favor, something about Haiti and how Mohinder had to go to cure someone. Rubbing his eyes blearily, Mohinder heard Sylar breathe in deeply, a sign that he too, was waking because of the disruption and possibly because of Bennet’s stern voice creeping through the cell phone’s speaker. “ _Alright, alright. If it’s just two days… Call me tomorrow and make arrangements. Goodnight._ ” Mohinder clicked the phone shut, struggling for a moment to determine if he’d just dreamt that exchange altogether; he was so tired he could scarcely be alarmed or concerned with Bennet’s words.

Suddenly, there was an arm sliding around his waist and his chest, Sylar’s warm figure through the blankets pressing against his back. “ _Bennet?_ ” Sylar whispered. In truth, he’d been too far from fully waking to catch the conversation, nor had he tried to do so.

Mohinder set his phone down next to the bed and rest his hand over Sylar’s arm. He hesitated a moment to simply reflect that this had been the first touch from Sylar in more than a day. He could feel the man’s forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, hair tickling the back of his neck. “ _Yes. I’ll tell you about it in the morning._ ”

“ _Did you fall asleep at work?_ ” Or avoid coming home? Sylar’s simple question was layered with another.

“ _Yes._ ”

There was an awkward shift of the covers, of Sylar pulling them out from beneath Mohinder’s fully clothed figure and draping them back over them both. “ _Sleep in with me tomorrow,_ ” was all Sylar replied.

Mohinder smiled softly, sleepily, and took that makeshift mending of their uncertainties for what it was. He threaded his fingers through Sylar’s against the back of his hand. “ _Alright._ ” 

 

When the clock struck ten, the phone rang again, and Mohinder silently cursed Bennet and his impatience. Both of Sylar’s arms were wrapped snugly about Mohinder’s body, face buried in his throat, and that made the man feel terribly guilty to pull carefully away and take the phone. Mohinder stumbled out of bed, heading into the next room, and quietly closed the door behind him as they began to speak.

Sylar rolled over, rubbing the back of his hand against his eyes, and squinted at the light coming into the room. With a wide yawn, he sat up. Automatically, he should have gone to make Mohinder breakfast, but given the time on the clock, he knew that wasn’t really in order this morning. Hearing Mohinder’s voice in the next room, but not bothering to listen in, Sylar went to brush his teeth.

A few minutes later, he returned to the room, getting dressed per usual, since going back to bed wasn’t likely to happen. He heard the snap of Mohinder’s phone shutting, and then footsteps and the shuddering of the sliding closet doors in the hallway. With a slight frown, Sylar exited the bedroom to see what was going on.

“Mohinder?” he called.

The man emerged from the entrance hallway, still wearing his clothes from the night before, but now tugging his empty suitcase along with him. Sylar blinked several times in confusion.

“Mohinder, what’s going on?”

A heavy sigh came from Mohinder, and he drew a hand through his mussed hair. “I need to go on a trip. I know this is sudden, but Bennet’s arranged a flight for me to Haiti,” he said tiredly.

The statement hit Sylar like a blow to the face. “ _Haiti_ _?_ What are you talking about, Mohinder? Is this what he called about last night?” Sylar asked, squinting a little as he approached, as if the concept in itself still had to work its way through his brain.

Running a hand over his face, Mohinder took a breath. “I’m sorry, I know this is out of nowhere. But the Haitian has developed the virus, and Bennet needs me to fly out and see if my blood will cure him.”

Sylar stared at Mohinder disbelievingly. The last thing he wanted was for Mohinder to put himself in direct contact with anyone connected to the Company. “Mohinder, the whole point of our being here is to avoid this sort of situation. The Haitian is supposed to be undercover with the Company- they’re probably watching him right now, waiting for you to come out of the woodwork and heal him! This is dangerous!” he insisted, motioning with his hands the point he was almost pleading to make.

Only shaking his head, Mohinder sighed. He knew this wouldn’t go over well with Sylar, but he had obligations, moral obligations, that couldn’t be bypassed this time for their own sakes. “I know it’s a bad situation. I know. But Bennet says it’s a natural strain of the virus. I don’t really have a choice.”

“You _always_ have a choice!” Sylar countered, voice rising. It wasn’t so much anger as it was concern, and something on his face bespoke of that. “You can walk away, Mohinder. You can let the world spiral down the hole it tripped into itself! This doesn’t have to be your decision. Send him a damned _packet_ of your blood!” 

The futility of that statement seemed to work its way through Sylar, the sheer irrationality of it. But still he found himself upset, and that distress was, as usual, directed towards Bennet and his former company. Before Bennet, Mohinder could have done anything he wanted freely with his work, but now the man was trapped in this disaster. Sylar shook his head. “This was Bennet’s quest, not ours. Hand it off to the people who don’t care if they live or die! What if they caught you? You’re allowed to care about your own sacrifice!”

Mohinder sighed, letting go of his suitcase and walking forward as his expression grew serious. He reached out and grabbed Sylar by the shoulders, giving him a brief shake as he looked the man in the eyes. “This _is_ my decision, Sylar, and it has to be. I have the power to save a man’s life, and I’m going to do it. Before we thought the natural strain of the virus might only be a serious threat to children since their immune systems are weaker, but if what Bennet says is true, this could be the most important thing I do for any of us.”

“But-”

“For you,” Mohinder countered. The two fell into silence, and Mohinder suddenly wrapped his arms around Sylar, holding to him tightly to him. His expression remained solemn, but his words were full of something deeper, a conviction Mohinder almost thought he had lost. “If the virus can develop in anyone who uses abilities, you, especially, could be in danger. I’m not taking any risks. Not when innocent people could die. …Not when I have something to lose.”

Sylar held still in that embrace, tense and waiting, as though something more was supposed to happen then, some sort of grand revelation that would make all of his worries okay again. Finally the man sighed, and he wrapped his arms around Mohinder. 

“Let me go with you. In case something-”

“No. I have to do this alone,” Mohinder murmured, arms tightening so that they might prove his point. “I want you to stay here… and I want to keep my laptop with you.”

Sylar’s heart seemed to stop at that. The very statement was something he could not interpret fully; was it a promise of Mohinder’s return, or a promise of his death? He opened his mouth to speak, but Mohinder was there first yet again.

“There is danger involved, I admit. And if that’s the case, I want my work to remain where it’s safest.” Mohinder closed his eyes, swallowing as his throat tightened.

The words seemed strangely tender to Sylar, and he didn’t know how to respond to them. There were meanings layered upon meanings there, but first and foremost Sylar felt the ones that struck him deepest; a trust that he never honestly thought would exist between them.

“I might… read it,” Sylar managed, voice soft and strained, the humor in his threat bare but subtle.

Mohinder pulled back from the embrace enough to reach up and touch his hand to Sylar’s jaw. He smiled slightly. “Then we’ll have something to talk about when I get back.”

Sylar wanted to say something, to say anything. To be poetic, profound, maybe, or at least meaningful. But there weren’t words. So he settled for the only ones that seemed to be safe ground:

“…Come on, I’ll make you breakfast. Knowing Bennet, your flight leaves soon.”

 

 

The Haitian was not bound by walls; the walls were made from old wood and tin, covered in crusted paints and hideous scraps of fabric and did nothing to hold the man inside. They merely reminded him of the freedom he had given up, the freedom he had chosen never to fight for. He wondered, as he lay in bed sick and feverish, why he had bound himself by sin. The walls of Primatech or any other place Thompson had long ago decided to place him in had never been much more than an inconvenience, and yet he had let it continue. It was for this reason that the Haitian lamented, privately, when he heard the voice of Mohinder Suresh entering his small dwelling while he himself lay in well-deserved suffering.

“There you are. I’ve been searching for you,” Mohinder stated as he hurried within and to the Haitian’s bedside. There was a broad plastic case held in one of his hands, and he immediately set it down on a nearby chair and opened it. “Bennet has sent-”

“I do not care what Noah said. I do not want your cure, Doctor Suresh. God gave me a power. I abused His gift, so He took it away. Now, I suffer His judgment,” the Haitian responded calmly, voice gravelly and straining against his illness. Burrowed deep within his blankets, he watched Mohinder’s face, wondering if his words had the intended impact.

“Then it is up to God to decide,” Mohinder countered. “Bennet told me the virus you carry was not given to you by the Company. If that is the case, then there’s a chance I might be able to cure it. A chance. I’ve never encountered the virus in an adult before,” Mohinder explained, pulling out something different than a mere transfusion kit. What he took out was a small vial filled with a clear yellow liquid: the result of his and Sebastian’s research. 

“What is that?” the Haitian asked, feeling a shiver travel through his body.

“A distillation of my blood; the only known cure for the virus,” Mohinder informed him, taking out a needle. 

“If you have the cure, the Company will not be far behind you,” the Haitian warned. “Bennet feared for your life because of your blood and your research, but the Company has proceeded with their experiments even without it. They may change their mind if something goes wrong. You should wipe your hands of this before you no longer have the choice. They will not give you one.”

Mohinder put down the syringe in his hand, staring at this serious man before him. “Then I think you know why you are still needed here. For the good you’ve done this cause in the past five or six months working against the Company… I think you should be able to see that God is not quite done with you yet. There’s a lot of good you, and I, can still do in this world.” Mohinder lifted the needle again, holding it in the Haitian’s view. “There’s a chance this won’t help you; a chance you could still die. Bennet could go on to his next stop without you, or, just maybe, with you. Will you let me try? Shall we see what God says?”

The Haitian gazed at the scientist before him, seeing in him yet again a sort of moral resolve that he longed, in some ways, for Bennet to find in a pure form as well. For Bennet to be able to use to rise above his own needs. Perhaps there would be a chance at redemption and progress for all of them through this. Feeling his hands shake as he put pressure on them, the Haitian slowly and painfully lifted himself to sit up. 

“Let us see what message God has for me, Doctor Suresh.”

“I have a ticket for you, from Bennet. If you can, you’re going to Ukraine.”

 

 

“You are nervous today. Distracted,” Olivier commented, pausing in his work to take a slow sip of tea, his hand trembling as he tried to hold the china steady to his lips.

Sylar was focused intensely on what he was doing, which was setting the wheels into their proper place in the watch he was working on. Though he seemed quite the opposite of distracted, he spoke as he worked and did not tell the old man a lie. “I suppose I am,” he murmured calmly, peering carefully at the metal pieces through his glasses.

“Something an old man might know a thing or two about?”the watchmaker asked in return, setting down his cup with an unintentional, clumsy clank.

Sylar had to smile a little at his honest intentions, and adjusted the frames on his face. Although he and Olivier had talked quite a bit as they sat opposite one another in the past couple days, and Sylar had indeed told him about his (very male) lover, he still felt a twinge of bashfulness speaking of it with another. “He’s on a trip,” Sylar replied, sitting up for a moment to pull back his shoulders and let his vertebrae crack. “I guess I’m anxious. I worry about him.”

The old man smiled to himself, watching Sylar drink his own cup of tea as he sat there. “He is probably anxious to see you as well. You are in each other’s thoughts.”

“Do you think-” Sylar paused, the words feeling unnatural and strange to him, and he felt they would even if he had spoken them in English. “Do you think it is wrong of me to be suspicious of a man I feel has bad intentions towards him? Towards Mohinder? He called it jealousy, but… I know it’s not that. Not really.” Sylar cleared his throat after he said the words, as if they were difficult to choke out.

Olivier pouted his lips out a little as he considered that, as he reached back to some age long ago in his mind and recalled what it was to be young and in love. He reached over and grasped another tool, sighing a small wheeze of a sigh. “Well… if you know it is not jealousy and your suspicions are true, you should do whatever you can to protect the one you love. You know, Gabriel, there is nothing in this world more powerful than love.”

Sylar smiled slowly. Perhaps there wasn’t, perhaps there was. He felt his temperature rise a little, his blood heat, at the prospect of showing Sebastian just that. The only thing as powerful as Sylar’s feelings were his abilities, and if he had to use them to show Sebastian who would be the one willing to do anything for Mohinder, Sylar knew that he could not hesitate. 

 

 

The face of Ivan Spektor was one the Haitian had to steel himself against when he watched it hurtled backwards against a cabinet, the resounding echo of Bennet’s gunshot complemented by a crimson smear against lime green on an expensive bureau. There was an instant, he thought, when Bennet might have spared the man his life in favor of a more clever route; even a proper pistol-whip against the temple could serve as an excuse for memory loss if they had actually made the scene look like a home invasion.

In spite of Mohinder’s words, the Haitian doubted himself once more when he saw the rage in Bennet’s eyes, the desperation to protect his precious daughter. But if it were not Bennet, the Haitian reminded himself, it would be another man. Another man less likely to succeed, more likely to end up dead. For this reason he went on. For this reason, he made no comment as they pulled open the creaking, rusted door of the warehouse in Odessa, Ukraine.

Bennet walked ahead of the Haitian, knowing from the man’s previous investigation on Bob’s computer just what the number for the particular crate they wanted would be. It sat wedged between many other large wooden boxes, and Bennet grabbed it as quickly as his heart pounded, cringing against the splinters as he tore the box clear of its place.

The Haitian moved beside him, crowbar in hand. He jammed it hard between the boards and, with a resounding crack, ripped the nails up that held it sealed.

“Open it,” Bennet ordered, “Pull it open, quickly.” Bennet felt his blood pulsing through his veins. He focused the light of the flashlight, but when he found it was shaking in spite of his efforts, he handed it off to the Haitian and bent down himself, yanking the two canvases out of their container. “The light, the-”

The image became clear, and it made Bennet fall into silence. For a moment, he ceased to breathe, just as he had with the last. The painting was simple: a figure sitting upon a chair that could have been mistaken for a throne, cast in complete shadow was it not for the harsh light of a single lamp above his head giving highlight to his outline. A deep shadow thrust forward towards the viewer, and the perspective bowed slightly down before him, making his hands on the arms of the chair appear larger than life, giving an all the more ominous feel to his form. In spite of the perpetual cloak of darkness over him, a single characteristic stood out: the eyes. The eyes were blank, hollow, and stood like floodlights into Hell against the darkness. They took Bennet’s breath straight from his lungs for all the evil they implied.

“I… have no idea who this is,” Bennet managed, swallowing. A man who might bring harm to Claire? A Company villain? He looked over at the Haitian for confirmation, perhaps in hope that… but no. The Haitian shook his head. He knew nothing either.

Bennet pulled that canvas away, leaning it up against another crate. He placed the second one next to it and took a full step back, letting the Haitian’s light fall on it fully. This one was no more promising than the first. It seemed to echo the painting of Isaac Mendez the Company had come to collect; the one that had predicted Claire’s end, but in fact foretold the death of her classmate. 

In the top left of a dark background stood an open doorway, casting light in diagonals over the canvas. But the light cast the shadow of a portentous figure as well. A menacing figure loomed in the doorway, looking over his work: a corpse, whose body was tilted close and large to the viewer, lying stretched out for all to see. Of pale skin and pale blonde hair, he lay in a crimson-spattered lab coat, red on white. His empty green eyes seemed to gaze out into nothing, perhaps seeking the top of his skull, which lay rolled to his side. 

His head was open. His skull was empty.

Drawing in a shaky breath, Bennet felt his heart begin to beat as though it might leave his chest. “I don’t know that man…” Bennet began. “But Sylar is going to kill him.”

“A doctor?” the Haitian questioned, tilting his head a little and narrowing his eyes as he took in the painting.

Bennet knelt down slowly next to the image, reading its label, ‘ **6/8** ,’ with a curious gaze. “The eighth painting… Maybe I kill Sylar. Sylar’s not done killing… Mohinder was a fool.” Bennet squinted at the corpse, trying to recognize his face, but he couldn’t recall any man he knew in those dead eyes. “A doctor… It could be chance. Just a doctor with an ability… or Sylar could be working with the Company? This man could have something to do with the virus. Or maybe-”

“We cannot speculate for too long, Noah. We need to call Suresh.”

Bennet stood immediately and nodded. He thought briefly of all the time Mohinder must have spent believing Sylar had redeemed himself; all the time he may have been feeding a dangerous enemy dangerous information. Every hour Bennet and the Haitian had spent from Haiti and the U.S. to the Ukraine, in Ivan’s loft, standing here- they added up to time in which Sylar could have already done something disastrous, destroyed it all. 

Bennet grabbed his phone and flipped it open as quickly as possible.

“Let’s just pray he picks up.”  
  


  


  



End file.
